272 



SYLVA AMERICANA. 



pubescent beneath. It flowers in the month of May, and is 

 succeeded by acorns of a sub-globose form. It fructifies once 

 in two years. 



The wood is hard and heavy, though its pores are open. As 

 the trunk is branchy and often crooked, it is considered as fit 

 only for fuel on the eastern side of the mountains. In the 

 country of Illinois where it attains much greater dimensions, it is 

 employed for shingles, probably for the want of a better species 

 for the wood is inferior to that of the willow oak, which it nearly 

 resembles. 



Over-Cup Oak. Quercus lyrata. 



This interesting species 

 exists in the lower part of 

 the Carolinas and Georgia, 

 on the banks of the Missis- 

 sippi in Lower Louisiana 

 and in East Florida. In 

 Georgia and the Carolinas it 

 is not extensively multiplied, 

 and has been distiguished 

 only by the inhabitants of 

 the places where it grows. 

 It is called Swamp Post Oak, 

 Over- Cup Oak and Water 

 M^Tiite Oak. The name of 

 Over- Cup Oak is the most 

 common in -South Carolina, 

 and that of Swamp Post Oak 

 on the Savannah in Georgia. This tree grows in more humid 

 situations than any other species of this genus in the United States. 

 It is never seen in the long, narrow marshes which intersect the 

 pine-barrens, but is found exclusively in the great swamps on the 

 borders of the rivers, which are often overflowed at the rising of 

 the waters, and are inaccessible during three-fourths of the year. 



plate lxxix. 



Fig. 1. A leaf. Fig 2. The fruit. 



